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Summer week of giveaways: Laundry Tree

by Tsh Oxenreider

Tsh is the founder of this blog and just finished traveling around the world with her husband and 3 kids. Her latest book is Notes From a Blue Bike, and believes a passport is one of the world's greatest textbooks.

This giveaway is closed.

We kick off the fourth day of the Week of Giveaways with a company I adore, Laundry Tree. They’re the company behind Soapnuts, the genius little things that cleans our family’s clothes.

I started using these Soapnuts to wash our cloth diapers, since it’s important to not use detergents with chemicals and residue in order to prolong the diapers’ absorbency. But since we live overseas, I couldn’t afford sky-high shipping charges on natural laundry detergents – so I thought I’d give Soapnuts a whirl.

Never heard of Soapnuts? Neither did I, until recently. They’re are the fruit of a tree found primarily in India, Indonesia, and Nepal, and they are an ideal alternative to traditional laundry detergents. They are simply harvested, de-seeded, and then dried in the sun. And they work — they really, really work!

They are 100%, totally natural. They are organically grown and are free of harsh chemicals, so they are incredibly gentle on clothes and skin. They’re biodegradeable, so they’re better for the environment than regular detergent, and they’re antimicrobial, so they’re even good for septic and greywater systems.

Here’s how they work:

You put three to five Soapnuts into the drawstring bag that’s included in your kit. Tie the bag closed and toss it directly in with your laundry. That’s it! Your clothes are just as clean as using traditional detergents, only with less residue and buildup. There’s absolutely no scent, either.

We now use them as our everyday laundry soap, because they’re really not that expensive. You can use the same Soap Nuts several times, so a deluxe kit will last almost five months. Break it down, and it’s less expensive than traditional detergents.

Seriously, I love this stuff. Lately I’ve been adding a few drops of Laundry Tree’s essential oils into the drawstring bag, so our clothes have been smelling like lavender. Love it.

Laundry Tree is giving one Simple Mom reader a Deluxe Soapnut Kit! It contains everything you’ll need to wash 150 to 175 loads of laundry: a 500g bag of soapnuts, three 1-oz. bottles of their most popular fragrances, two sample bags (to use for traveling or share with friends), and one extra washbag.

To win, here’s how to enter:

Leave a comment at this post, answering the following question: What article of your household’s clothing is the most difficult for you to get clean or keep clean?

The giveaway is open worldwide, and it lasts until this Saturday, May 30. I’ll draw the two winners this weekend.

This product sounds amazing! I make my own detergent, but I would LOVE to try these Soap Nuts!! The knees on my 7 year old son’s pants are the worst! He likes chinos – light tan, of course! And plays in the grass, mud, dirt, you name it!!

What a wonderful product! We have ridiculously hard water here in Indiana, so doing laundry is a bit tricky. Detergent alone is no match for the minerals in our water. The hardest thing for me to get clean is definately my two-year-old son’s play clothes. He helps me alot in the garden, so he gets covered in dirt as all little kids should. But he also has very sensitive skin so I can’t just load up the washer with crazy cleaning products to combat the stains. Sounds like we should give Soap Nuts a whirl!

Pretty interesting product. Never even heard of it.
I’d say my husband’s work shirts are always hard, as he tends to get them dirty when he eats. By the time he gets home and let’s me know there’s a new stain, it’s too late. The man needs a bib!!

I think MY clothes are the hardest to keep clean! While I scour every inch of my girls’ t-shirts for food stains and grass stains and dirt stains… I’m a little more willy-nilly when it comes to my laundry, as if I’m a sophisticated adult that wouldn’t ever get anything on my clothes.

Funny thing – the hardest things for me to keep clean AND get clean are MY shirts. I am always walking around with baby slobber on my shoulders, spilling things all over my chest… the worst is oil. If I am cooking with olive oil or eating something cooked in it, or eating a salad, I wind up pretty much ruining a shirt by dropping oily bits on me.

Just a comment since I’m always having the oil problem as well… Have you tried using dish soap on the spots? It was a revelation to me when someone suggested that. Obviously it gets the grease off our dishes… why not our clothes!? It works great. =)

I use the soap nuts myself and I can confirm that they work really well. And they can be used for other cleaning purposes too if you boil them. Just boil 5 or 6 nuts in 1 litre of water for 5 minutes. Allow to cool, filter, and then you can use this washing liquid as a shampoo (very good against dandruff), hand soap, for cleaning the house, or even as an antiparasitic for your plants.
For me the worst are towels, they get dirty very quickly and they are prone to get a persistent bad smell.

My son’s clothes are by far the hardest items to clean in our house. I already make our laundry soap, but it has a hard time with his food stained shirts. I would love to see if soap nuts could clean his clothes without the chemicals.

I have a terrible time with my husband’s socks. He wears white ankle socks and they’re always brown around the shoe line. I’m not very good with bleach and they are NEVER white. Thanksfully, he couldn’t care less

I would love to enter to win soap nuts! I have read a lot about them, but haven’t been able to find them in our area:( As far as hardest to get clean, that would be my teenage son’s socks. They always end up black on the bottom, and this is with the shoes ON lol! Thanks for the nice giveaways all week! Dana d09@goldingers.com

My husband’s work shirts. He pours concrete for a living, so they’re always stained with mud, concrete dust, etc. These sound cool! We’re into organic, all-natural type things, so I’d love to give these a whirl!

I would say my little 2 month old girls clothing. She tends to have a few “explosions” a week which leads to really tough stains that are hard to get out, especially if you don’t wash them right away. Also our white sofa cover is very very hard to clean!

I love the sound of this product. I am always looking for something eco-friendly and new, as well as hypoallergenic as my son has some eczema. The hardest thing to keep clean is any of my son’s shirts. He tends to spill food on them every day to some extent. By the time it comes to the laundry room, the stain is set.
Thanks for introducing me to this product!

What a neat product – I would love the opportunity to try them out! Hardest to get clean would have to be my daughter’s tops – she’s a toddler and learning to use utensils when she eats – there’s always a stain or mark that I miss!

Our cloth diapers hands down but then they probably get the most use out of anything else that ends up in the washing machine. The ground in sweat/dirt on the collars and wrists of white shirts come a close second.

I would have to say the most difficult clothes to get clean are my husband’s work clothes. He works construction and his clothes come home VERY dirty! I would love to try the soap nuts! Thanks for the giveaway!

I’ve recently heard of these as well, and can’t WAIT to give them a try.
I don’t currently have any tiny babies in my house, but I would say that their laundry is the hardest to keep clean. We’ll be starting all over with that later this year.

Wow! I’ve never heard of something like this! I think the hardest thing to get clean/keep clean are my girls’ shirts. They spill on themselves, and those stains can just… not be easy to take care of. And they happen continuously, so it’s a neverending cycle.

Diapers!!! They aren’t difficult to get clean, they’re difficult to KEEP clean! lol 😀 I just read on another blog about soap nuts while I was researching natural detergents. I’m wanting to make the switch but was looking at all the options. I’m really curious as to if they work or not. It seems bizarre to wash a fruit with your clothes and it have it actually clean them. I’d love to give them a try!

I was just reading about these the other day and thinking I would love to try them out!
Right now, the hardest thing for me to get/keep clean are my infant’s clothes/burp cloths/bibs. Especially when he has a big poo and it gets on his clothes, that’s really hard to get out.

I think I’m at the point of giving up on having white sheets and a husband at the same time. The edges of my sheets are still white but the part he sleeps on are an unlovely shade of beige. Bleach might work but I wont use it.

I would love to say the hardest thing to keep clean is something worn by my two-year-old or my one-year-old, but alas it is my husband who is impossible to keep clean. He’s a lawyer and somehow his dirty button ups rival the hardest working construction man. It’s ridiculous!